Our Safety And Our Ideals

Dennis Trainor, Jr • Operation Itch writer/ editor
more in NEWS & ANALYSIS

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 expanded text below the break
  

The UpTake is opening up a call for Opinion/Editorial videos. To kick this off, I am happy to say, they have brought me in to provide regular video commentary for them. We do not have a name for the show yet, and look forward to hearing ideas for the show’s name from the audience (leave your ideas in the comments). We also hope that more people feel inspired to send us “video op/eds”. To do just that, follow these instructions:

1) Have something intelligent to say; 2) Record it on a video using your real name; 3) Upload it atwww.tubemogul.com using info@theuptake.org as your log in and uptake411 as your password; 4) Send an email to info@theuptake.org telling us about your video. 

GEMINI JIVE: “Annals of History: Begging Your Pardon?”

Maralyn Lois Polak • Operation Itch Contributing Writer 
©2009 ML Polak
see all posts by MLP

In the final fatal moments of his lethal Presidency, claiming he was acting to preserve his place in history as well as his legacy as a Compassionate Conservative, Bush-Wah pardoned a rough and ready gang of what his livid critics characterized as “some of the worst evildoers who ever existed in life as well as literature, on the planet, or on the page”– 1,549 past, present, and future villains in all, recipients of executive clemency.

 Among the beneficiaries of GWB’s last-minute legalistic largesse, to say nothing of his reanimating the dead and revitalizing the (sometimes) barely living, were Lizzie Borden, Adolf Hitler, Dr. No, Josef Stalin, Goldfinger, Adolf Eichmann, “Papa Doc” Duvalier, Atilla the Hun, Sherman Adams AND his Vicuna Coat, Raskolnikov, Mussolini, Shylock, the Unabomber, Iago, Lavrentiy P. Beria, Margaret Thatcher, Leopold and Loeb, Falstaff, Cruella De Ville, the Iceman, Carlos the Jackal, Tony Blair, Al Capone, Lyndon Johnson, Jack the Ripper, Norman Bates, and yes, even Saddam Hussein and The Joker. But never Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, or anyone else who really deserves to be pardoned like most of those currently imprisoned for crimes they did not commit, you can bank on that. 

 And yet, revealing a surprising depth and breadth of insight long obscured by his image as a generic booze-coke-and-pretzel-loving-upside-down-children’s-book-reading-911 plot-machinations-country-hijacking-good-ole-boy, GWB’s solid, sophisticated deconstructive Shakespearean analysis of heroes and villains is worthy of a Lifetime Chair in Criminal Psychology at Harvard, let alone the last gasps of the Ultimate Lamer, er, Lame Duck:

 

“While a Hero represents ‘the perfect man,’ I don’t know any, except maybe my brothers and my father. Sure, Shylock’s an outsider not only because he’s actually Jewish and the rest of the town’s Christian, but also because he has a different value system. Like me, in Washington, only in reverse. Shylock makes it clear he enjoys his role as an outsider when he tells Bassanio. ‘I will buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you and so following; but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you’ (I.3.33-35). In Shakespeare’s play, Shylock’s both victim and villain. Like, he’s a decider and a people person, like me. See, he gets betrayed by his only daughter when she elopes with a Christian and loots his house of all the gold and jewels. Although he’s angry about the loss of his prize material possessions, he’s devastated when he learns his daughter also sold a memento which was very important to him, you know, a sentimental thing. This shows Shylock’s definitely not just motivated merely by financial gain. Let’s face it, he could have been an ordinary Texas oilman, who ran a baseball team, and somehow, through an accident of fate, or family connections, or the right folks pulling the strings of the election machines, became President instead.”

 However, Bush 43’s misplaced generosity with this deluded avalanche of pardons, exceeding even Bill Clinton’s megalomaniacal excesses, seems to have spurred a seriously contentious fissure in his own family, with his wife Laura tearfully calling a global press-conference at 3 AM on the eve of the Inauguration. “My fellow Americans, and our overseas friends, I’m here to tell you I’m creeped out,” she admits. “I know my George has a big heart. I know he secretly roots for the bad guys, I mean, underdogs. But the notion of all those freed miscreants roaming the defenseless streets of our afflicted nation, well, I swear I’ll never sleep again, so help me, Lord. And I don’t know how my dear sweet husband, who had his own two darling daughters to protect until they managed a flimsy pretext to escape his clutches, I mean, leave home, could ever do that to Obama’s little girls, exposing those adorable darlings to all that potential danger of a pent-up Norman Bates suddenly let loose. As for me, I’m afraid to take a shower ever again. Oh, George!”

Outsourcing War: American Mercenary Forces Exploit Remnants of Old Dictatorship

Alex W • Operation Itch Contributing Writer 
see all posts from Alex W

A subject that has always interested me is the continuing effects on society of having lived through a dictatorship or totalitarian rule. This is an important topic for the United States, because we live in a society that has supported dictatorships for many years, and as nations are emerging from the turmoil inflicted upon them by the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. during the Cold War, we’re starting to see the long-term effects. We need to pay attention, and avoid continuing to cause these problems for future generations.

One obviously can point out that today we reap what we sewed; World War II fractured the Middle East, because of its oil, the U.S.S.R. tried to take advantage of it, we armed the militant fundamentalists to fight them, and then we tried to gain control of the oil for ourselves. If you’re reading this, you’ve probably heard the arguments.

What I’d like to focus on now is the condition in South America, where the U.S. took similar action against the spread of, in most cases, democratically-elected governments which we considered a little too pinkish. The military dictatorships we helped financially and in some cases militarily tortured and killed thousands in the name of fighting terrorism. An entire generation in several nations were in very real danger. The crimes punishable by death in clandestine torture chambers varied from being a militant revolutionary, being a communist or socialist, or simply going to college or helping the poor.

I’ll save my comparison of the long-term effects this has had on society and the adamant human rights organizations that came out of this to what may happen in the future due to the new U.S. torture and detainment policies for a later date, but you can expect an article on it. For now I want to address the issue of the stagnant throwbacks which remain sympathetic to an overthrown dictatorship.

Hey Natalie Dylan, Here’s Some Advice for Selling Your Viginity

Liz Langley, AlterNet.   more posts in Sex & Relationships   

“Virtue has never been as respectable as money.” — Mark Twain

“I always thought of losing my virginity as a career move.” — Madonna

Obama, Blagojevich, the economy, Gitmo, torture, Mickey Rourke … it’s been a juicy news month. So, who do you have to screw to get a little attention around here?

The answer: The highest acceptable bidder.

We are now officially in the 15 minutes of Natalie Dylan, the pseudonym of the enterprising 22-year-old who is auctioning off her virginity through the Moonlite Bunny Ranch in Nevada as part of a thesis project for a master’s degree in marriage and family therapy (she recently completed her BA in women’s studies from California State University, Sacramento). The bidding began in September and, as of this writing, is up to $3.7 million.

Natalie’s maiden muff is hers to do with as she wishes — sexual desires, values and limits vary wildly, and as long as no one gets hurt, t’ain’t nobody’s business what you do. We just wonder — what if some religious group buys it and decides to keep it intact forever?

Any pro-virginity faction could pool some loot and once the “Sold!” sign is planted (but not too deep) — WHAM! — on goes the chastity belt. Then she’ll be screwed — or not — for life. Imagine getting punk’d by Ned Flanders.

The Said and the Unsaid

 Ashley Sanders • Operation Itch Contributing Writer

read all posts by this author

 “Enough, one must go on, these are things that one thinks but does not say.” –Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz

“It was their everyday duty.” –Primo Levi, on Nazi brutality

I recently read the morning paper. I shouldn’t have done that. I also recently read Survival in Auschwitz, by Primo Levi. I shouldn’t have done that either, but for different reasons: it demanded too much grief and asked too many questions. Less recently, I went to a public meeting about a new pet-coke plant that Consolidated Energy wants to put next-to-the-refinery-next-to-the-freeway-next-to-the-asthmatic’s-worst-nightmare. I also shouldn’t have done that, and not just because it involved fighting odious big business practices, but because I never feel as lonely as I do in political meetings where everyone agrees with me.

There is a connection between the shouldn’ts, but that will have to wait.

This time there were about 500 hundred people who agreed with me. They had brought signs and their kids, and also their kids covered in signs that said things like: “Don’t make me breathe dirty air.” The Department of Environmental Quality was leading the meeting, and a sad-looking man behind a microphone was trying to assure people that, not to worry, the coke plant wouldn’t exceed DEQ standards and that – even though pet-coke was the dirtiest residue of the fuel extraction process, and even though it would be shipped across the country in open-air train cars, and even though the area surrounding the refinery already was three times the limit of normal air quality levels, and even though the citizens wouldn’t even get the power that was generated, and even though we did not need another power plant, and even though the world was rife with alternatives – he was bound and obligated to approve it. The man was summarily booed, and by people who had never said boo in their lives before: booed by women with acrylic nails and tiffany heart bracelets next to a man with coveralls and a trucker hat, also booing.

CDB#5: Light it up

 Zack Charles • Operation Itch Video   • 

(lyrics below the break)
  

Lefties Feel the Recession More than Most

by Kevin Egan • Operation Itch Contributing Writer    

 more  in HUMOR   read all posts by Kevin Egan
 

 

Pitcher, “Lefty” Gomez in 1908.

 

 

 

 

Ben Franklin: America’s most famous “Lefty.”

 

SAN DIEGO (AP)- After conducting a nationwide survey of numerous factions of Americans, The Center for Demographic Research released startling results today, concluding that left-handed people have been hit hardest by the current recession, more than any other category of Americans. 

“It seems that many left-handed people have been the first to be laid off at work,” said Nancy Frightenwood, spokesperson for The Center.  “In the blue collar world, most machines are built for right-handed people, which leaves the lefties at a disadvantage. And in the white collar world, it seems that simple things like office supplies can cause trouble for Lefties, slowing down their productivity and contribution to the company as a whole.” 

Many left-handed Americans, or “Lefties,” are grateful for the survey and the attention it has brought to their plight.  Massive demonstrations are currently being planned in multiple cities across the country, protesting the prejudice that has singled out lefties in these hard economic times.  In addition, Thursday, Jaunary 29th, is being dubbed, “National Left-handed Awareness Day,” to help shed some light on this troubling trend.         

Samuel Bluck, 53, of Indianapolis, Indiana, one of many left-handed people currently left unemployed by the recession, had recently been let go from his job at the Eddington Scissor Factory, causing “a double wham-y,” as Bluck described his situation, since not only had the machinery that built the scissors been designed for right-handed use, the scissors themselves were made exclusively for right-handed people as well.    

“There were times I found it almost impossible to test the scissors to see if they functioned correctly,” Bluck says.  “I knew when lay-offs were announced, I’d be the first to go.  I could see it in my foreman’s eye.”   

Gretta Dench, 41, of San Diego, California, also felt the pinch of the recession when she was relieved of her job with the banking firm of Addison and Flight, a job she had held for over twelve years.

Franz Ferdinand: Tonight

Stuart Berman • Pitchfork   more in Arts & Culture    

The standard line about having your whole life to write your first album and only six months to write your second seemed especially true in the case of Franz Ferdinand. The Glaswegian band issued its sophomore effort You Could Have It So Much Better some 18 months after its 2004 self-titled debut– a narrow window considering that first record yielded three top 10 UK singles, a Mercury Prize, and a steady touring itinerary that saw them ascend from clubs to concert halls to the Grammys. But the quick turnaround and life on the road didn’t affect the quality of the material so much as the band’s performance of it– sounding brawnier and brasher than on their debut, Franz Ferdinand ripped through the album’s 13 songs.  

Franz Ferdinand must’ve therefore been happy to sit out the past three years. In the time since Franz released their last album, their American contemporaries the Killers have already gone Springsteen and then swung back to their synth-pop roots, while next-generation UK upstarts like the Arctic Monkeys have weathered their own cycle of hyperbole, hibernation, and orchestral side projects. During that time, Franz Ferdinand first seemed poised to reemerge as the biggest pop band in the UK– having initially tapped Girls Aloud guru Brian Higgins (Xenomania) to produce their third album– or the most commercially suicidal, eventually parting ways with Higgins and indulging in extended studio jams, electronic experiments, and deconstructed, Martin Hannett-like recording techniques (complete with tales of using human bones for percussion).

What Do Women Want?

DANIEL BERGNER/ NYTIMES more posts in Sex & Relationships   

Meredith Chivers is a creator of bonobo pornography. She is a 36-year-old psychology professor at Queen’s University in the small city of Kingston, Ontario, a highly regarded scientist and a member of the editorial board of the world’s leading journal of sexual research, Archives of Sexual Behavior. The bonobo film was part of a series of related experiments she has carried out over the past several years. She found footage of bonobos, a species of ape, as they mated, and then, because the accompanying sounds were dull — “bonobos don’t seem to make much noise in sex,” she told me, “though the females give a kind of pleasure grin and make chirpy sounds” — she dubbed in some animated chimpanzee hooting and screeching. She showed the short movie to men and women, straight and gay. To the same subjects, she also showed clips of heterosexual sex, male and female homosexual sex, a man masturbating, a woman masturbating, a chiseled man walking naked on a beach and a well-toned woman doing calisthenics in the nude.

While the subjects watched on a computer screen, Chivers, who favors high boots and fashionable rectangular glasses, measured their arousal in two ways, objectively and subjectively. The participants sat in a brown leatherette La-Z-Boy chair in her small lab at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health, a prestigious psychiatric teaching hospital affiliated with the University of Toronto, where Chivers was a postdoctoral fellow and where I first talked with her about her research a few years ago. The genitals of the volunteers were connected to plethysmographs — for the men, an apparatus that fits over the penis and gauges its swelling; for the women, a little plastic probe that sits in the vagina and, by bouncing light off the vaginal walls, measures genital blood flow. An engorgement of blood spurs a lubricating process called vaginal transudation: the seeping of moisture through the walls. The participants were also given a keypad so that they could rate how aroused they felt.

The men, on average, responded genitally in what Chivers terms “category specific” ways. Males who identified themselves as straight swelled while gazing at heterosexual or lesbian sex and while watching the masturbating and exercising women. They were mostly unmoved when the screen displayed only men. Gay males were aroused in the opposite categorical pattern. Any expectation that the animal sex would speak to something primitive within the men seemed to be mistaken; neither straights nor gays were stirred by the bonobos. And for the male participants, the subjective ratings on the keypad matched the readings of the plethysmograph. The men’s minds and genitals were in agreement.

Björk Gets Her Own Sustainable Investment Fund

April Streeter, TREEHUGGER    •  
Singer and celebrity Björk has become something of a sustainability whirlwind. Björk’s already been vocal about her opposition to a proposed aluminum smelter for the economically-challenged country of Iceland. After she did an environmental benefit concert earlier this year called Nattura and became depressed at the thought that the show would do little to deter aluminum smelter proponents, she wrote a chaotic song (also called Nattura) and launched it on ITunes in October. That led her to a trip round Iceland to find sustainable business ideas and tell the government about them. Finally, this month, Björk gave her name, her image, and an undisclosed sum of money to a new venture capital fund dedicated to getting money to the best and brightest local businesses.

Obama vs. Labor: Vacillating on Card Check?

By DAVID MACARAY • CounterPunch more in NEWS & ANALYSIS   

In the span of, literally, a few weeks—beginning with President-elect Obama’s nomination of Hilda Solis as Secretary of Labor, and ending shortly after his inauguration—organized labor has gone from a state of euphoria to one of confusion to one of resentment, then back to euphoria, and then back to resentment, before settling, finally, on something resembling Hindu fatalism. 

This emotional roller coaster ride was propelled by one question:  How hard will Obama push to get the EFCA (Employee Free Choice Act) passed?  In a nutshell, the EFCA would make it extraordinarily easier for America’s workers to join labor unions by doing away with the necessity of NLRB-sanctioned union certification elections. 

Under the EFCA, employees would merely sign cards saying they wished to join.  If a majority of them signed cards, presto!—they automatically become union members.  No more wildly biased management propaganda meetings, no more bureaucratic thickets, no more stalling tactics by company goons intent on torpedoing the organizing drive.  Known as the “card check” method, if fifty percent plus one says Yes, they have themselves a union.

Holy Wars and International Lawlessness

Alex W • Operation Itch Contributing Writer 

see all posts from Alex W
From Alex: A video containing my opinions on the relationship between current developments in the Israel-Palestine conflict and the international political climate and the long-lasting negative effects of the rhetoric and false logic used to justify American aggression and war crimes. Visual material is from a variety of different sources; these are current events portrayed in a manner I believe to be consistent with fair use. Update: Barack Obama, immediately following his inauguration, has started to reverse some of the illegal policies of the previous administration, but has not taken a stand against the use of white phosphorus or uranium “bunker busters” in civilian areas.

(VIDEO) Continuing Bush Policies in Israel and Afghanistan

Glenn Greenwald    more in NEWS & ANALYSIS

By all accounts, the U.S. is suffering extreme economic woes.  We continue to borrow trillions of dollars simply to prevent financial collapse.  Our military resources are spread so thin that the establishment consensus view blames the failure of our seven-year (and counting) occupation of Afghanistan, at least in part, on the lack of necessary resources devoted to that occupation.  And a significant (though not the only) reason why we are unable to extricate ourselves from the endless resource-draining and liberty-degrading involvement in Middle East conflicts is because our one-sided support for Israel ensures that we remain involved and makes ourselves the target of hatred around the world and, especially, in the Muslim world.

Despite all of that, the Bush administration, just days before it left office,entered into yet another new agreement with Israel pursuant to which the U.S. committed to use its resources to prevent guns and other weapons from entering Gaza.  That agreement cites “the steadfast commitment of the United States to Israel’s security” and “and to preserve and strengthen Israel’s capability to deter and defend itself,” and vows that the U.S. will “address the problem of the supply of arms and related materiel and weapons transfers and shipments to Hamas and other terrorist organizations in Gaza.”

Speaking about that new U.S./Israeli agreement on her show late last week, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow (in the course of aggressively questioning an absurdly evasive Sen. Claire McCaskill on the wisdom of Obama’s plans to escalate the war in Afghanistan and noting the cadre of Bush defense officials on whom Obama is relying — video below) observed that the Obama administration has enthusiastically expressed its full support for the new Israeli agreement entered into in the last days of Bush’s presidency.  Maddow said (h/t Antiwar.com):

Also, not particularly change-like, then-President Bush made a deal in his final day in office with Israel about the terms of Israel’s relationship with Gaza. I’m sorry – it wasn’t his last day in office. It was within his last few days in office — my mistake.

The U.S. under President Obama is bound by that last-minute agreement between the U.S. and Israel. And a statement from Press Secretary Robert Gibbs today says that President Obama supports the agreement fully.

MAYBE HE CAN! OBAMA REVERSES CRIMINAL POLICIES, BUT WHAT ABOUT THE CRIMINALS?

 Dennis Trainor, Jr • Operation Itch writer/ editor 
more in NEWS & ANALYSIS

see all posts by this author

 

Bye- Bye GITMO

Barack Obama went from becoming the first black president of the Harvard Law Review (1990) to becoming the first black president of the United States of America so quickly, that it is not a stretch to say that we have only known him as a candidate. His life, for the last eighteen years, has been one carefully modulated and expertly managed campaign. Even when he held such underachieving slacker status positions such as United States Senator, his votes, his appearances, his public statements- and even the shirtless beach photos – have all been part of the larger campaign. As a candidate, perhaps no one has ever been as good as Obama. He has been so good, in fact, expectations of his presidency are rivaled only by an Evangelical Christian’s expectation that Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead.

Like Christ, Obama is now a myth. The man will never walk in step with what we think of him, because we have projected so much onto him. Yes, it does speak well of his campaign that it was able to leverage the desperation of so many who were so horrified of our own inaction these past eight years. We needed a savior to rescue us from the shame brought on because we had, collectively speaking, done nothing after George Bush stole the 2000 election save for prop up a cottage industry that fed us a steady stream of clever anti-Bush t-shirts and bumper stickers for us to brandish on the sidelines as our President proceeded to treat the constitution as a pesky little obstacle in his way as he waged his comic book battle of good vs. evil, now let loose from the safe confines of his little village idiot of a head and leaving a trail of blood soaked deserts and unknown blowback in its wake. 

There are some who will give Obama high grades for a longer than average honeymoon period simply because the man has replaced will be remembered by history as the worst president to ever hold the office. Alfred E. Newman would have been an improvement on Bush, the subliminal thinking will go, and Obama is surely better than Alfred E. Newman. But for many, the bar is set unreasonably high. Like Christ, many praise Obama as a revolutionary. I’m more inclined to agree with Ashley Sanders, former spokesperson for the Ralph Nader campaign, who described the change that Obama has sold us as

a hazy feeling that Obama (despite all evidence to the contrary) was the peace candidate, the environmental candidate, the Black candidate, the people’s candidate. The whole production borrowed ideas that were actually dangerous to Wall Street, gutted them of danger, and resold them as ideas that were dangerous to Wall Street. It used spectacle to create the illusion that an infinity of similar options was the same thing as a meaningful choice, as real change or authenticity. It was the triumph of ideology: getting people to vote against themselves in the name of themselves.

The whole thing smacked of buying punk clothes at Hot Topic. 

As Americans, we know not where to get punk clothes but at Hot Topic, and are so entrenched in ad culture that we would not know a revolution unless it was being sold to us. Here is what is being sold to us in the first week of the Obama presidency: Obama has swept into town and takes swift action in reversing the criminal culture of torture and rendition and secret prisons by issuing an executive order to shut GITMO. This much is true.

Kennedy Out, Gillibrand In

Allison Kilkenny • Operation Itch Contributing Writer 
see more in NEWS & ANALYSIS  see all posts from Allison Kilkenny 

Politico and other media sources are reporting that governor David Paterson has chosen Kristen Gillibrand to fill Hillary Clinton’s vacant Senate seat.

Gillibrand is a Blue Dog Democrat, which is the name moderate Democrats gave themselves so people stopped confusing them with Republicans. Gillibrand is a pro-gun, fiscally conservative “Democrat.” Blue Dog Democrats are the people who cower at the word “liberal,” and fail to acknowledge that the only gains we — as a country — have made regarding civil rights were because of those dreaded, damn liberals.

I have previously criticized the nomination of Caroline Kennedy because she was clearly a legacy selection. Let’s pretend her name was Caroline Smith, or Caroline Martinez, and she boasted of zero legislative experience, and could only incoherently mutter something about her daddy when asked why she wanted to fill one of two coveted Senate seats. No one would have considered such an applicant. Hence, why I hated the idea of Caroline Kennedy in the Senate. I’ve heard just enough about Camelot, thanks very much.

But Gillibrand is part of the same politically incestuous community. During the Clinton years, she served as Special Counsel to the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Andrew Cuomo, another nominee for Clinton’s seat. She too hosts lavish fundraising parties (out of state, an accusation she ironically used against one of her former political opponents, John Sweeney). Kennedy, no doubt, was seriously considered for the Senate role specifically for her fundraising abilities (the name Kennedy brings in a hefty chunk of change,) so it’s to be expected that cash cows are always at the forefront of these kinds of nominations.

I was really hoping Paterson would go for a fresh political name like Nydia Velasquez, who has served in the House for 15 years, and was the first Puerto Rican woman to serve in Congress. She has dealt primarily with small businesses, and is largely unknown in the political community, but I think that’s a good thing. Kennedy is very well known, has less experience than Velasquez, and I was supposed to take her seriously as a candidate, so why not Nydia? Oh, right, she’s not a legacy, or a Blue Dog.

At least Caroline was unapologetically liberal, a privilege only afforded to Kennedys, it seems. If you have a yacht, you get to look your fellow Democrats square in the eyes and say, “I believe in equal rights and not torturing foreigners. Fuck you.” But if you’re a middle-rank Democrat, you have to pathetically triangulate and apologize until you don’t even look like a Democrat anymore, and -BAM!- you wake up and your name is Kristen Gillibrand and you’re in the Senate.

Gross.

Cross-posted from allisonkilkenny.com

Excerpts from My Obama/Lost Fan Fiction

Meg Favreau/ 23/6     see more posts in Humor 

 

EXT – THE ISLAND – DAY

BARACK OBAMA, HURLEY, and CLAIRE are running through the jungle. All are sweating, out of breath, and wide-eyed. Obama leads the group, determined.

OBAMA: Come on!

The group crashes through the trees and brush, frantic. Finally, we see what is chasing them: the smoke monster.

HURLEY: What is it? What is it?

Obama stops and turns to look at the monster. Close up on his face.

OBAMA: It’s the economy.

CUT TO title: LOST

***

EXT – THE BEACH – NIGHT

All survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 are standing on the beach, talking and surrounding Barack Obama, who is lit dramatically by torch light.

SAWYER: You need to get us off this stinkin’ island, Obama!

SAYID: Does anybody even remember that the Others stole all our children?

LOCKE: This island has powers! I have a knife!

OBAMA: Look…my fellow survivors. I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed on me. That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility — a recognition, on the part of every survivor, that we have duties, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

ROSE: Are you telling us that we need to build another boat?

OBAMA: Yes. And don’t let it catch fire this time.

***

INT – THE HATCH – DAY

An alarm is going off. BARACK OBAMA sits in front of a computer, typing.

OBAMA: John, I need to know what the numbers are!

CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS: 4, 8, 23…

OBAMA: 4, 8, 23…

CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS: Er, 4, 8 ,15, 16, 23…

OBAMA: 4, 8, 23, 15, 16…

The hatch explodes. Title: LOST.

End episode.

A new sheriff in town?

From The Real News: President Obama announces plans for Guantánamo, Afghanistan and the Middle East
see more in NEWS & ANALYSIS    

Five-way Green primary to take place in Illinois; twenty six candidates in total

Ross Levin • Operation Itch Contributing Writer 
more in  NEWS & ANALYSIS  
See all posts from Ross Levin
In Illinois’ fifth congressional district, over two dozen candidates have filed for the March 3rd primary.  The special primary and special election are being held to replace Rahm Emanuel, who will be moving from the House to the White House.  He will become Barack Obama’s Chief of Staff.

The five candidates are Deb Leticia Gordils, Mark Arnold Fredrickson, Alan Augustson (who was previously reported on here), Mathew Reichel, and Simon Ribeiro.  Only 30 signatures were needed to qualify for the primary ballot.

There are interesting political histories behind these candidates.  First, Deb Gordils challenged an incumbent, Dick Mell, for city council in Chicago’s Ward 33 who could not be unseated in 2003.  She is Hispanic and the district has a fast-growing Hispanic constituency.  Even though she was unsuccessful, garnering 13.75% of the votes in the non-partisan two-way race, it amounted to a Pyrrhic victory for the incumbent.  An ally of his was defeated because he had to focus on his own reelection instead of focusing on electing this ally.  Two cops even tried to take pictures her as a “representative of Mell’s,” and her video recording of this led to the defeat of one of the cops in a race for Alderman:

Gordils made headlines earlier when she confronted two uniformed police officers taking pictures of her and identifying themselves as Mell’s representatives.

“They said, ‘What are you looking for? What job can we get you? Do you want something with the Water Reclamation District? You only have to go to a couple of meetings,”” Gordils said.

Gordils turned her video camera on them. One was Chester Hornowski, who’s running against Ald. Tom Allen (38th).

As IPR has previously reported, Alan Augustson ran in the same district as a Green in November.  He got just over 9,200 votes – or 4% – with the Democratic winner getting over 170,000 votes, and the Republican getting about 50,000.

Another former opponent of Rahm Emanuel in the race is Mark Fredrickson, who ran against him in the 2006 Democratic primary and got about 9% of the vote.  Emanuel is a Democrat of the highest order – apparent from his recent appointment by Obama and being the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaigns Committee – so Fredrickson had an uphill battle to fight with his 2006 candidacy.  Emanuel is also infamous for being a vicious partisan and relentless fighter.

Candidate Matt Reichel is only 27 years, yet has some political experience.  He worked with the peace movement while in college, volunteered for political causes in France during graduate school, and in 2007 he moved to Las Vegas, Nevada and worked for the Dennis Kucinich for President campaign.  After Kucinich conceded, he went to Ohio’s 10th congressional district to help re-elect the Congressman.

Interestingly, Simon Ribeiro is the nephew of former US Senate Alfonse D’Amato, who represented New York.  The following video was posted at Ribeiro’s campaign website:

Dear Barack Obama:

Anita Stewart • Operation Itch Contributor

 Congratulations to you and Michelle for making history. Now I will be honest and tell you now that I did not vote for you. I belong to the Green Party. I and many that I know expect you to do the right thing by the American people. I would love to see you keep your promises. This cannot be just a honeymoon moment. I hope that you can lead us with the same amount of integrity, honesty and fortitude that led you to Chicago to study and serve your local community there years ago. I would love to see America respected around the world again. Can you make that happen? I have a firm commitment to make sure that I spread the word to everyone I know, that we as Americans can never, ever again take our liberty for granted. Liberty is free, but we must all do our parts to maintain it. It can disappear quickly with the simple flick of a pen to the bottom of a document. And in bits and pieces. Will you continue to do what the people want or bow to the corporations and lobbyists and powers that be? Will you do the right thing and restore those rights that were viciously taken away from us in a very calculated way, bit by bit during King George’s Reign of Terror?

Broken Military Marriages: Another Casualty of War

Stacy Bannerman, AlterNet    
more posts in Sex & Relationships 
More than 13,000 military marriages ended last year, and mine came dangerously close to becoming one of them, but it wasn’t because of some gays getting hitched. Military marriages are at increasingly high risk of failure, and combat is the cause.

Most of the boots on the ground in Iraq are worn by Marines, active duty Army, or Army National Guard. They have served the most and longest deployments, seen the most combat, and suffered the most injuries, both physical and psychological. In 2008, the active-duty Army and Marines also had a higher percentage of failed marriages than the Navy or Air Force, whose rates held steady or decreased slightly.

Divorce rates for women in the Army or Marines were nearly three times that of their male counterparts, which speaks volumes about the effect of war on women, as well as the gender roles, societal expectations, and resiliency of their husbands. The fact that the Veterans Administration has just a handful of gender-specific treatment programs for women, and there’s been scant attention, research, and support for women veterans speaks for itself.

A study published in Armed Forces & Society revealed that male combat veterans were 62 percent more likely than civilian males to have at least one failed marriage. In 2006, Kansas State University professor Walter Schumm surveyed 337 soldiers at Fort Riley who had recently returned from Iraq. 6.1 percent said they would probably divorce, and 12.2 percent indicated that they would be divorcing. By comparison, two to four percent of civilian marriages end in divorce each year.